For even the king of straw—­the imprisoned cardinal—­was now dead, and there was not even the effigy of any other sovereign than Henry of Bourbon to claim authority in France.  Mayenne, in the course of long interviews with the Duke of Parma at Conde and Brussels, had expressed his desire to see Philip king of France, and had promised his best efforts to bring about such a result.  In that case he stipulated for the second place in the kingdom for himself, together with a good rich province in perpetual sovereignty, and a large sum of money in hand.  Should this course not run smoothly, he would be willing to take the crown himself, in which event he would cheerfully cede to Philip the sovereignty of Brittany and Burgundy, besides a selection of cities to be arranged for at a later day.  Although he spoke of himself with modesty, said Alexander, it was very plain that he meant to arrive at the crown himself:  Well had the Bearnese alluded to the judgment of Solomon.  Were not children, thus ready to dismember their mother, as foul and unnatural as the mother who would divide her child?

And what was this dependence on a foreign tyrant really worth?  As we look back upon those dark days with the light of what was then the almost immediate future turned full and glaring upon them, we find it difficult to exaggerate the folly of the chief actors in those scenes of crime.  Did not the penniless adventurer, whose keen eyesight and wise recklessness were passing for hallucination and foolhardiness in the eyes of his contemporaries, understand the game he was playing better than did that profound thinker, that mysterious but infallible politician, who sat in the Escorial and made the world tremble at every hint of his lips, every stroke of his pen?

The Netherlands—­that most advanced portion of Philip’s domain, without the possession of which his conquest of England and his incorporation of France were but childish visions, even if they were not monstrous chimeras at best—­were to be in a manner left to themselves, while their consummate governor and general was to go forth and conquer France at the head of a force with which he had been in vain attempting to hold those provinces to their obedience.  At that very moment the rising young chieftain of the Netherlands was most successfully inaugurating his career of military success.  His armies well drilled, well disciplined, well paid, full of heart and of hope, were threatening their ancient enemy in every quarter, while the veteran legions of Spain and Italy, heroes of a hundred Flemish and Frisian battle-fields, were disorganised, starving, and mutinous.  The famous ancient legion, the terzo viejo, had been disbanded for its obstinate and confirmed unruliness.  The legion of Manrique, sixteen hundred strong, was in open mutiny at Courtray.  Farnese had sent the Prince of Ascoli to negotiate with them, but his attempts were all in vain.  Two years’ arrearages—­to be paid, not in cloth at four times what the contractors